While jail inmates in Redding are regularly shipped to other counties because the Shasta County Jail is full, the opposite happens with juveniles.

Shasta County’s Juvenile Rehabilitation Facility is typically only about one-third full, so it accepts youths from other counties.

The irony that adults are shipped out of the county while youths are brought in isn’t lost on Shasta County Executive Officer Larry Lees. But the juvenile facility isn’t going to be the solution to the county jail’s chronic overcrowding problem, he said.

“Why don’t we close off half that and open that for adults?” Lees said, repeating a question he has heard before.

State and federal laws prohibit housing adults in the same building as juveniles, he said.

“We can’t even walk one of our juvenile clients down a hall with adults nearby,” he said.

The juvenile facility — county officials don’t call it “juvenile hall” anymore — can hold up to 90 youths, but there is typically 25 to 30 there at any one time, said Tracie Neal, the county chief probation officer.

With unused space at the facility, the county has agreed to accept juveniles from Trinity and Modoc counties, Neal said.

CLOSE

Dusty Steele, honorary mayor of Cottonwood, addresses the Shasta County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday during a public safety workshop.

From September 2016 to August 2017 the county housed 10 wards from out of county, she said. The county Board of Supervisors recently agreed to increase the amount of money the county can receive from Trinity County.

Under the new agreement Shasta County can receive up to $300,000 for housing juveniles from Trinity County. The rate is $115 a day per juvenile, Neal said.

While the county is taking in kids from other areas, the Sheriff’s Office is sending inmates to several other counties, including Lassen, Del Norte, Nevada and Eldrado, Sheriff Tom Bosenko said.

The jail is limited to holding no more than 342 inmates at any one time, Bosenko said, so his office often sends inmates to jails outside the county.

He didn’t know how many inmates are being sent to other counties, but said the county has budgeted up to $500,000 a year to pay other counties to hold inmates.

Not all inmates qualify to be sent out of county, Bosenko said. Only inmates that have been sentenced can be sent to jails outside the county, he said. Sentences also have to be at least 30 days long, he said.

Usually, other counties will not take inmates who are combative or have discipline problems. Mental health and medical issues also disqualify an inmate from being held outside the county, he said.

County officials said there are several reasons the juvenile center remains only a third full. Neal said the probation office tries to use other options besides incarceration, including home detention, GPS monitoring, treatment programs and “pro-social options,” Neal said.

“The youth population is smaller and not all youth who are arrested or cited are booked into the Juvenile Rehabilitation Facility or require custody time. Our department works with community based organizations and if a youth is eligible and appropriate for a diversion program it is offered,” Neal said in an email.

Lees said the arrest rate among juveniles has also plummeted.

Eight to 10 years ago, police arrested about 1,400 juveniles a year, he said. In 2017 there were 400 juvenile arrests in Redding, leading to far fewer kids sent to the rehabilitation facility, he said.

That is a trend happening across California, according to the California Attorney General's Office.

In 2010 there were 185,867 juvenile arrests statewide, according to state figures. That number fell to 71,923 by 2010, according to the state.